


to the stars

by callunavulgari



Series: Holiday Writing Challenge '12 [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Multi, POV Second Person, Polyamory, Threesome - F/F/M, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-06
Updated: 2012-12-06
Packaged: 2017-11-20 11:00:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/584665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He turns to you, your name on his lips—his eyes just as soft as they had been before—and you say the words as you think them: “I remember.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	to the stars

**Author's Note:**

> Day 4 of the Holiday Writing Challenge on tumblr [over here](http://giraffe-tier.tumblr.com/post/35469673249/winter-drawing-writing-challenge). Prompt was 'books'. This was supposed to be a quick Ruby/Belle drabble, but apparently I wanted to get some polygamy up in this fandom. Woefully unbeta'd, so if you see something that I missed, let me know.

You don’t remember much from your life in Storybrooke. You remember a tiny, black cell and clothes that weren’t warm enough in the winter and just barely tolerable in the summer. They itched; you think that they might have been green. You remember sour smelling food being slipped through the slat in the door, and how you’d learned very quickly that if you didn’t grab the food immediately, the nurse would drop it. You would have to scrounge the dirty floor for stringy, barely palatable meat and half-rotted foot. There was never enough water, so your mouth was always dry. Sometimes, rarely, there would be a pair of eyes watching you from that slat; dark eyes with curling lashes that watched you with something that might have been malice if you’d known what the emotion meant at the time.  
  
You didn’t know your name or where you were—you didn’t even know the color of your own hair until you were released from the cell—until you felt the sun’s rays on your face for the very first time.  
  
You didn’t know anything, just the endless stretch of time that seemed to last eons yet stay frozen in place, like stone. You knew nothing, so you watched the moon—the ebb and flow of it calming—because it was proof that something in your life was constant.  
  
After the strange man set you free, you had wandered, knowing nothing but a name that was not your own and a message.  
  
Then—then you knew the smell of the antique store, like old thin parchment and patchouli oil; you knew Gold’s face as he looked at you like you were something he’d been missing; you knew the feel of another’s arms around you—the smell of him and the feel of his suit brushing against your cheek.  
  
He’d given you clothes and taken you on a walk through the trees—bigger and greener than you could fathom, smelling sweet and fresh, like something you didn’t have the word for.  
  
He’d shown you the river and the soft coating of pine needles on the mossy forest floor, teaching you the words that you needed, clutching your arm to his when you would start to look lost and walking ahead of you when you thought you could handle it.  
  
And then you’d remembered—like a switch in your head going off. You’d remembered the gold of your dress and the way the Dark One had tucked his hand into the crook of your elbow like a proper gentlemen. You remember thinking of prisons and slavery and never knowing the sun again—how you’d been surprised when he had let you have your own room, your own dresses and shawls and trousers, how he’d let you have free reign of his castle. You remember his name, Rumpelstiltskin and how it had felt to fall in love with him. You used to watch his hands as he spun straw into gold, marveling at how something so powerful could do something so beautiful.  
  
You remember the way his voice had sounded with your name on his lips, how his eyes had softened at the word— _Belle_ —like you were something to be treasured.  
  
And then you remember anger and the words _true love’s kiss_ and it’s enough to almost make you flinch back from him.  
  
He turns to you, your name on his lips—his eyes just as soft as they had been before—and you say the words as you think them: “I remember.”  
  
.  
  
After the curse breaks, your world slowly unravels. Once upon a time, Rumpel had put you together and then torn you apart, all while being unaware of what he was doing. He does the same now, but it’s only when your father tries to destroy you both that you truly shatter.  
  
You set out on your own, and that’s how you meet Ruby—sweet and kind Ruby who is as soft as a newborn pup’s fur and rough as a diamond. Her heart is beautiful, wide open and warm where Rumpel’s had been closed off and cold.  
  
You inherit a library from Rumpel and start meeting him for breakfast once a week.  
  
Ruby chains you up in your library and nearly dies, but when she comes back she rubs her cheek against yours, still wolf-like and wild from the moon, chanting _I’m sorry_ until you interrupt her with your lips against hers.  
  
They’re warm and she tastes like sunshine in the winter.  
  
You think that you might be happy.  
  
.  
  
Sometimes, Ruby hides from Granny in your library—hidden between the A-D and E-J stacks in the fiction section—her knees pulled up to her chest and a book in her lap. You join her sometimes, when the kids are behaving themselves; you curl up against her and let her read to you, her hat tilted at the right angle to block the worst of the fluorescent lights. She always tells you when the kids are starting to bicker, her ear twitching a bit even as she grins down at you, pressing a happy kiss to the top of your head before she shoos you off to deal with the tiny little heathens.  
  
.  
  
You tell Rumpel about her at breakfast one morning, in a little booth at Granny’s on one of Ruby’s days off. She’s still sleeping the moon off in your bed, her toes probably the only thing peeking out from beneath the covers, just how you left her.  
  
You tell him, and he just blinks at you for a moment, before smiling and leaning towards you. You lean closer, both of you hunkering down over the table like schoolchildren with a secret. “Does she make you happy, dearie?” he asks, dark eyes serious, but sincere.  
  
For a moment, you just nod, because your tongue is stuck to the roof of your mouth, your eyes wet. He waits, patient as always, and when you finally say, “yes,” he just smiles at you—reaching out to cover your hand with his.  
  
“Then I’m happy, dearest.”  
  
.  
  
Time moves on sluggishly.  
  
Ruby moves in with you and your mornings are full of laughter. Sometimes, when you wake early to shower before opening the library she’ll crawl in with you, pressing you back against the cool tiles as hot water streams down between you, warming both of you. More often than not, you just soak in the warmth, pressing sleepy kisses to her shoulder and kneading shampoo into her scalp, but sometimes, she slips her hand down between your bodies and makes you shake apart. You think that those are your favorite days, and when you meet Rumpel for breakfast he smiles at you, an eyebrow raised, just waiting for you to laugh and smack him.  
  
You still love him, of course. He knows it and so do you. As for Ruby, she just rolls her eyes, and tells you, “it’s very stockholm syndrome, but I’m done.”  
  
For the most part, they avoid each other, but you’ll see them sometimes—on the mornings when you have breakfast with him and Ruby’s working—talking quietly, her bending over the table, the long, lithe curve of her body turned towards him.  
  
When you return, they clam up, both smiling at you like they’re hiding something.  
  
.  
  
You think that sometimes ‘true love’ isn’t always restricted to just two people. It’s more like lines, like the red string of fate you’ve heard of. String doesn’t always tie one to another, simple and clean. String has knots and tangles that you have to meticulously unwind, and sometimes, a string can have three points, like a miniature spider web.  
  
.  
  
Eventually, you all end up back home in the Enchanted Forest. Some people had stayed—Jiminy and Emma and the Queen—but most of you had gone.  
  
Rumpel looks at you carefully, standing next to Ruby—no, next to _Red_ , in the bright sun. He looks like he used to and when he giggles quietly to himself, you step forward and kiss him.  
  
When you pull back, his eyes are dark again, his skin smooth, and he’s staring at you in wonder.  
  
“Of course I’ll go with you,” you tell him, gesturing to Red with one hand and sighing with relief when she slots into place next to you both. “We both will,” she says as she slips her hand into yours, a challenge in her eyes.  
  
He laughs softly, under his breath, and you think that the rest of them might be staring—you know that Granny’s muttering under her breath—but you don’t care.  
  
.  
  
The first thing you show Red is Rumpel’s library—the one he had given you when you’d first lived here, all that time ago—  
  
.  
  
You see them sometimes; around the castle, in the kitchens or the library or over Rumpel’s spinning wheel—biting each other’s lips—Rumpel crackling with power and Red looking like she’s going to shift and tear off his face any second.  
  
You watch them as they twist together, snarling and snapping, until their clothes are pooled on the floor and Red is sliding onto Rumpel’s lap, her hair spilling down her back, catching the light as she moves. You watch them, heat in your belly, your mouth dry as Red grins savagely down at him, twisting her hips sharply enough that Rumpel gasps against her breast.  
  
You wait until they’re too preoccupied to notice before you slip into the room, crossing until you’re kneeling down behind Red, sliding your hand between them to feel where they meet.  
  
They shudder, trembling in your presence and it isn’t until Red collapses onto Rumpel that you realize you’ve undone them both, just with that simple touch.  
  
They look at you, sweat on their brows and a question in their eyes that you dismiss by grabbing a nearby towel so you can wipe them both down.  
  
When you lead them both back to the bedroom, they tug you down between them—Rumpel’s cool skin wrapped around your front and Red like a furnace against your back.  
  
You fall asleep like that, a smile on your face.  
  
.  
  
None of you sleep alone after that.  
  
.  
  
In Storybrooke, your story had been Beauty and the Beast.  
  
In the Enchanted Forest, your name is Belle. You live in the Dark One’s castle—Rumpel, you, and a girl in a red cloak who turns into a wolf when the moon is full.  
  
Your story is no longer about broken hearts and chipped cups. It's about three people, two of which happen to be beasts.  
  
.  
  
You’re all on the floor of your library, a roaring fire at your backs. Red is stretched out across the floor, bare as the day she was born, her hair spilling down her back like a copper blanket and her feet in Rumpel’s lap. They both smile at you lazily as you let your favorite book fall open in your hands.  
  
You smile down at the words, wetting your lips.  
  
You breathe in, then out, and start, “Once upon a time—”


End file.
